We review the theory and phenomenology of instantons in QCD. After a general overview, we provide a pedagogical introduction to semi-classical methods in quantum mechanics and field theory. The main part of the review summarizes our understanding of the instanton liquid in QCD and the role of instantons in generating the spectrum of light hadrons. We also discuss properties of instantons at finite temperature and the chiral phase transition. We give an overview over the importance of instantons in some other models, in particular two dimensional sigma models, electroweak theory and supersymmetric QCD.Comment: 143 pages, latex (uses rmp.sty, harvard.sty, epsf.sty), 42 figures, to appear in Rev. Mod. Phy

Matter at high density and low temperature is expected to be a color superconductor, which is a degenerate Fermi gas of quarks with a condensate of Cooper pairs near the Fermi surface that induces color Meissner effects. At the highest densities, where the QCD coupling is weak, rigorous calculations are possible, and the ground state is a particularly symmetric state, the color-flavor locked (CFL) phase. The CFL phase is a superfluid, an electromagnetic insulator, and breaks chiral symmetry. The effective theory of the low-energy excitations in the CFL phase is known and can be used, even at more moderate densities, to describe its physical properties. At lower densities the CFL phase may be disfavored by stresses that seek to separate the Fermi surfaces of the different flavors, and comparison with the competing alternative phases, which may break translation and/or rotation invariance, is done using phenomenological models. We review the calculations that underlie these results, and then discuss transport properties of several color-superconducting phases and their consequences for signatures of color superconductivity in neutron stars.Comment: 63 pages, v2: version to appear in Rev. Mod. Phys.; references added; small improvements at various point

Instantons lead to strong correlations between up and down quarks with spin zero and anti-symmetric color wave functions. In cold and dense matter, $n_b>n_c\simeq 1 fm^{-3}$ and $T$ condensate and restoring chiral symmetry. At high density, the ground state is a color superconductor in which diquarks play the role of Cooper pairs. An interesting toy model is provided by QCD with two colors: it has a particle-anti-particle symmetry which relates $<\bar qq>$ and $< qq>$ condensates.Comment: 4 pages ReVTeX, 2 eps-figures included using epsf.st

We review, clarify, and extend the notion of color-flavor locking. We present evidence that for three degenerate flavors the qualitative features of the color-flavor locked state, reliably predicted for high density, match the expected features of hadronic matter at low density. This provides, in particular, a controlled, weak-coupling realization of confinement and chiral symmetry breaking in this (slight) idealization of QCD.

Shear viscosity is a measure of the amount of dissipation in a simple fluid. In kinetic theory shear viscosity is related to the rate of momentum transport by quasiparticles, and the uncertainty relation suggests that the ratio of shear viscosity η to entropy density s in units ofh/k B is bounded by a constant. Here,h is Planck's constant and k B is Boltzmann's constant. A specific bound has been proposed on the basis of string theory where, for a large class of theories, one can show that η/s ≥h/(4πk B ). We will refer to a fluid that saturates the string theory bound as a perfect fluid. In this review we summarize theoretical and experimental information on the properties of the three main classes of quantum fluids that are known to have values of η/s that are smaller thanh/k B . These fluids are strongly coupled Bose fluids, in particular liquid helium, strongly correlated ultracold Fermi gases, and the quark gluon plasma. We discuss the main theoretical approaches to transport properties of these fluids: kinetic theory, numerical simulations based on linear response theory, and holographic dualities. We also summarize the experimental situation, in particular with regard to the observation of hydrodynamic behavior in ultracold Fermi gases and the quark gluon plasma.